Piracy exists as another scapegoat for companies who make games that suck to use as an excuse as to why people didn't buy their product. I'm not saying it's not a problem but it's not the biggest problem. Not even close.

Companies come out and say "This would have sold better if so many people didn't pirate it." when in reality most pirates have absolutely no intention of buying it in the first place so their typical tactic of "we lost a sale because they pirated it" is essentially meaningless.

A game company made a game company sim and seeded a special version on a bit torrent tracker that they advertised as cracked but made it so the more popular your games became the more they'd get pirated. They then published forum posts and support emails from those users asking how they can stop the pirating and if they could add a DRM feature to their sim games.

We live in a society where people born on third base constantly try to steal second, yet we expect people born with two strikes against them to hit a homerun on the first pitch.

Actually, piracy is generally a good thing if it's a good game. People tend to buy what they like. I've pirated lots of games that I then bought (or later bought the sequel/expansion to). There's a good reason there are starter editions of games like WoW which you can't really pirate (well).

Newsom wrote:Actually, piracy is generally a good thing if it's a good game. People tend to buy what they like. I've pirated lots of games that I then bought (or later bought the sequel/expansion to). There's a good reason there are starter editions of games like WoW which you can't really pirate (well).

You can keep lying to yourself, but don't wait others to believe that shit. You aren't standard where every pirate compares to.

Well, you also have to consider that in certain cultures, especially asia, bootlegging is the norm and is perfectly acceptable to most. Only people in Thailand that pay for legit copies of any software are businesses that want to stay above-board.

Amirya wrote:... because everyone needs a Catagonskin rug.

twinkfist wrote:i feel bad for the Mogu...having to deal with alcoholic bears.

Newsom wrote:Actually, piracy is generally a good thing if it's a good game. People tend to buy what they like. I've pirated lots of games that I then bought (or later bought the sequel/expansion to). There's a good reason there are starter editions of games like WoW which you can't really pirate (well).

You can keep lying to yourself, but don't wait others to believe that shit. You aren't standard where every pirate compares to.

While it would be silly to claim that every pirate does it, it is somewhat true. Especially when it comes to games that have events and stuff like that - they'll get more interest from sheer numbers. People have a tendency to want to try stuff before they buy, and they'll do things like tune into streams, events, buy merch or expansions etc., after they've actually been bought over by the game.

Going back to Mass Effect, the issue with the ending was that it was excellent all the way until the final bit of the ending, and then you go "..wah...?"

If it had been a mediocre game, nobody would have cared. If it had been a railroad despite the marketing, nobody would have cared. But it was, to a big extent, choose-your-own space adventure, and the third game did have tons of payoff from choices made in game 2. But it was all included in the first part of the game, and many of the consequences of your choices, while awesome in their own right, were dwarfed and made a bit meaningless by the Final Choice, which 1) gave you three different cinematics that mostly differed in what color the lines had, 2) had no basis whatsoever in earlier choices and 3) had some very weird consequences for the setting if you thought about it a bit.

Belligerent stupidity is the biggest threat to everything on this planet. Gaming is no exception.

There is plenty of stupid jerks among people who play games. There is no shortage of them among developers, publishers and journalists, either. And *all* of them love to frame the conflict as "gamers vs. industry". It simultaneously allows them to demonize the opposition by painting it with the same brush ("All gamers are entitled kids"; "EA/Blizzard hates us all") and enlist everyone on their 'side' as cannon fodder for their petty wars.

The only recourse is to reframe the conflict as "sane and reasonable people vs. stupid assholes" (and no, this is not synonymous with "gamers vs. industry") and resolve it within each group. Instead of fighting against each other, those who make games and those who play them should focus on purging their own ranks from bad apples that spoil the rest of the barrel. Developers and publishers need to take disciplinary measures against employees who act like harmful jerks. Journalists should take down links to those of their colleagues who are writing in bad faith. And the gaming community should actively shun those gamers who are guilty of harassment, threats and insults.

Make no mistake: this is HARD. It's very tempting backslide into 'gamers vs industry' mentality and ally with the jerks you know instead of throwing them to the wolves, but that will only make things worse. As the old saying goes, change must come from within. An angry abusive gamer won't mend his ways if he reads a hundred articles lambasting his moral downfall, but getting kicked from his guild for being an asshole might just do the trick. Likewise, getting a hundred hateful forum posts won't stop a games developer from acting like an insufferable jerk, but a stern reprimand from his boss is another matter.

(By the way, this is applicable to other areas of human life as well. So many political and religious conflicts could be resolved for good if each side would stop fighting with the other and instead dealt with the stupid jerks among its own ranks).